Manfred Moments
by Piko Niko
Summary: I decided to make a fanfic with little short stories mostly centered around Manfred because that's who I usually write about anyways. Flames/reviews/criticism/etc are welcome.


**Just something I wrote for fun. Probably the happiest story I've ever written. I kind of altered what happened at the cathedral and some other places because the way the book had it didn't make sense. **

Manfred tilted his head back, observing an odd droplet or two squeeze past the cathedral's looming ceiling and fall to the marble floor with a _cling_. He liked the chilled and eerie atmosphere; it gave a sense of calm serenity and, most importantly, control. For whatever reason, it was always the places in which the most trying times of his life occurred that molded into his favorite spots. His old room – the one with the window, which his father had shattered when he threw a then eleven-year old Manfred against; his mother's room, where, he'd been, among all other things, stabbed and shot; his father's study where practically nothing ever went well for him; and this cathedral – the room in which he'd witnessed a man beaten almost to death, been sprayed with the blood of several people, and had a complete stranger pull a gun on him, all seemed to glower with an endless spark of adrenaline. It made him feel alive.

A loud slam bounced off the cathedral's finely tuned acoustics, as if the door had recently been manhandled by a steam engine. Something that looked like a mass of hair and ripped clothing tumbled down the walkway, tripping twice on the way.

He snapped out of his reverie and stood up calmly, turning his phone three times over in his hands before depositing it in his front pocket. "Seen some mileage, eh Charlie?"

Charlie answered the question in his customary intelligent manner, "Your eyes are different!" he blurted.

Manfred groaned inwardly. Had he never seen colored eye contacts before? The electric light blue overlapped clumsily with his original pitch black, forming bruise-like irises with slight obsidian undertones, encircled by a rusty copper, which contained idle sparks of crimson. It still looked unusual, but given that no one had poured holy water on him yet, he figured it must have been at least a slight upgrade. He turned his attention back to Charlie, "No shit, Sherlock. I figured it wasn't polite to walk into a place of worship looking like hell's spawn."

That was a hard point to argue, so the other boy switched accusations. Charlie crinkled his nose, an expression which, in Manfred's opinion, made him look like he'd been through a blender. "I though only girls dyed their hair."

"This?" The older boy tentatively twirled a red-tipped strand once around his index finger before letting it fall limply a few inches below his collar bone. He shrugged indifferently; "Most of my friends dye theirs. And for the record, where the hell were you last year when half my bangs were blue?"

He found the shock on Charlie's face amusing. _Yes, I do have friends – quite a few actually. And if you'd surface from your delusional world every now and then, you might find that I don't really spend all my time plotting to overthrow the "good side," or whatever you like to be called. _Manfred allowed his question to linger in the frosty air as he pulled out his phone, answered the incoming texts in a flurry, and hid it again.

By the time he looked at the younger boy's face again, he was seemingly ready to change the topic once more. "What are you doing here?"

"Me?" Manfred always preferred to answer a question with another question. It spun people in circles, which made them more susceptible to any other mind games he might choose to play in the future.

Charlie narrowed his eyes. "Yes you."

"I'm waiting for Zelda to drive me to her house so we could cram for our AP English test. She's supposed to call me when she's here." he answered coolly. The right corner of his mouth twitched up in a smirk, "And when her father leaves at four," he continued, "we thought we'd celebrate our efforts with something a little bit more . . . carnal in nature."

His comment was seemingly enough to drive Charlie over the brink. "You're disgusting!" he spat. "Is that all you care about, fucking people up both figuratively and literally?"

Manfred didn't answer. He was absentmindedly gazing at one smooth strip of creamy marble covering the floor, remembering the vivid scarlet it had been that night. If he looked closely, he could almost discern a few miniscule shards of glass gently covering the floor. Had Lyell Bone knocked the bottle out of his father's hands when he punched him or were they remains from Ezekiel Bloor's glasses? He couldn't even remember who had been drinking that night – his father or MostynTolly – both were pretty notorious alcoholics. Of course, his father had gotten better after his mother's tragic "accident," which she had deserved anyhow.

He pulled himself back into the present and leveled his gaze with Charlie's, wondering how anyone could take a few twisted facts, build such a detailed story, and then chose to hate someone for it. Unfortunately, this seemed to be translated as some sort of smugness.

Unnerved by his general lack of response, the young boy yelled, "If I could sum you up in one word, it would be evil!"

Most people would have been incensed by the comment, but instead Manfred found it amusing. _Me? Evil?_ _For fuck's sake, I've experimented with guyliner. I listen to bands like Linkin Park and Skillet. My favorite song is currently "Gone Forever" by Three Days Grace. I have long, dyed hair. If there was a word to describe me, it would either be 'emo' or 'gay.'_

"I highly doubt so," he muttered, more engrossed in the beautiful stained glass and the colorful shadows that it threw on the ground. He extended one hand, allowing the light to dance across his skin.

Charlie walked up to the musing boy and leaned in close enough to see an old scar snake around the edge of his neck. A daring move, thought Manfred, though one that Charlie wouldn't replicate if he wasn't wearing contact lenses. "Then. Where's. My. Father." he hissed.

Manfred couldn't give a right answer. Saying he didn't know would only cause a hissy fit from his peer as they both knew that he did. But on the other hand, to reunite the two would mean a necessary father-son chat for Charlie, in which Lyell Bone would be forced to explain that, instead of being a knight in shining armor, he was more of a douchebag wrapped in tinfoil who had been a little too liberal with whom he tried to shoot. And as tempting as Charlie's mental breakdown would be to watch, Manfred preferred to wait until he had a camera on hand before having them join up. After considering and then dismissing giving him a false lead, he shrugged and pulled his hands from his pockets. "Don't look at me; all I've got in my bag are some notes and a textbook." When the other boy's face didn't turn crimson enough for Manfred to consider his job done, he quickly added "and condoms."

To the older boy, people whom he disliked were generally placed into several groups: those who were mentally functioning who could hold an intelligent conversation, those who weren't mentally functioning, but could still hold an intelligent conversation, and those who were complete jackasses and lived mostly to remind him of how not to act and serve as entertainers for up to ten minutes. Charlie was primarily in the third division, and the quiet vibrations coming from Manfred's shirt pocket signified that his time was just about up.

The older boy ducked, narrowly avoiding what would have been a punch to the face, grabbed his things and ran to the silver car parked outside. By the time Charlie had managed to realize who was where, Manfred was just a speck in the distance.

**This was a lot of fun to write. Hope you enjoyed it. **


End file.
